Dec 3 2022
By:
David Henderson
Never Give Up In response to my post about winning a victory against a well-funded measure to increase property taxes to pay for child care in Monterey County, one commenter wrote: To me, socializing a lot of child-rearing costs sounds like a ship that has sailed. I can accept that a ship has sailed. I don't accep...
Dec 3 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
It is remarkable that Vladimir Putin, the Russian despot, calls the West (that is, Western values and individuals living in rich and more or less free countries) "decadent," while his intentional attacks on civilians in Ukraine are reminiscent of the barbarians of former ages of mankind. Is it necessary to mention that...
Dec 3 2022
By:
David Henderson
In 2018 or 2019, I attended a local meeting of about 30 people, virtually all of whom were pro-Trump. What many of them liked most about Donald Trump's policies was what I disliked most: his policies on immigration. Many of the pro-Trumpers argued that he was cracking down on illegal immigration. I agreed that he was b...
Dec 2 2022
By:
David Henderson
A well-funded group had put a proposal on the ballot, Measure Q, that would have levied an annual $49 per parcel (of land) in Monterey County for ten years. The money would go to child care. In early August, when I read the proposal, I just knew that almost all the major players in the county would favor it or, if they...
Dec 1 2022
By:
David Henderson
When you hear that something is refundable, you probably think that means that someone gets a refund on something he or she paid. But the IRS and even economists who study tax policy don’t mean that at all. By “refundable,” they mean that someone gets a payment even if he or she paid nothing in the first place. ...
Dec 1 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
To understand how monetary policy went off course, it might help to look at Lael Brainard's recent speech on monetary policy. Here is an excerpt: Inflation in the United States and many countries around the world is very high (figure 1). While both demand and supply are contributing to high inflation, it is the rela...
Dec 1 2022
By:
Kevin Corcoran
Yesterday, I did a dive into different levels of the idea of unintended consequences. Here, I want to focus on the implications of different types of unintended consequences. Specifically, I’m looking at how we should apply these ideas to policy makers, and the policies they enact in order to achieve specific goals. ...
Read this Pierre Lemieux Book Review:
Oct 1 2022
By Pierre Lemieux
A Book Review of The Mirage of Social Justice, by Friedrich Hayek. Volume II of his Law, Legislation, and Liberty1 Published in 1976, The Mirage of Social Justice was the second volume of Friedrich Hayek's trilogy Law, Legislation, and Liberty. My review of the first volume, Rules and Order, appeared on Econli...
Dec 1 2022
By:
Roger Koppl,
Abigail Devereaux
Diving is an important skill in soccer. No one has touched you, but, like a toddler throwing a tantrum, you throw yourself on the ground and cry out in faux agony, usually while clutching a body part such as your knee or ankle. If you do it right, the referee will think there has been a serious foul and penalize the op...
Nov 30 2022
By:
Kevin Corcoran
Those of us who are friendly to decentralized market processes and are skeptical of centralized intervention in the market often speak about unintended consequences of intervention. The idea of unintended consequences is important, but it also comes in a few different degrees and forms worth unpacking. For now, I want...
Nov 29 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
Milton Friedman often argued that corporations should concentrate on maximizing profits, and not spend resources on other social objectives. He was once asked if this meant that corporations should do evil things if it led to higher profits. Friedman quite sensibly responded that firms should maximize profits under the...
Nov 29 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
Foreign tyrants are leviathans with feet of clay, and our own government should not limit our liberties in order to supposedly protect us against them. This reflection is supported by a revelation of this morning's Financial Times: Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and Ant, has apparently more or less fle...
Nov 28 2022
By:
David Henderson
My wife and I have been watching a lot of British TV series that typically deal with crime and/or courts. In one we watched about a month ago, I learned an expression that really touched me. In the series, a woman who's a cop in Liverpool finds out that her daughter, who had left in a snit as a teenager, had died in Ir...
Nov 28 2022
By:
David Henderson
An organization called feedspot has put together a ranking of the top 100 economics blogs. We're [that is, EconLog] number 5! I hasten to add that you should take this with a grain of salt. But maybe not a whole salt shaker. After all, Marginal Revolution, which they misspell, was number 1, a ranking that seems reas...
Nov 28 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
Pierre Lemieux has a new post discussing how some people oppose US gas exports because they drive up prices to American consumers. This is interesting, as the sorts of groups that gain and lose from gas exports are quite difference from the case of import competition.Economists traditionally support free trade because ...
Nov 27 2022
By:
Walter Donway
President Biden’s student loan-forgiveness scheme is the latest illustration of two economic truths. The first is that government subsidies buy what some people (the recipients) want at the expense of what other people (non-benefiting taxpayers) want. The second is that government subsidies often buy more failure, no...